Deep inner peace and joy are obscured for most humans as we are trained to embrace shared and learned mental beliefs and stories of being separate and distinct beings. We believe we are located within the concepts of time and space, and we identify as being and existing as a personal self. I believed this consensus reality for 56 years.
Uncovering I am not a separate human being in a world of other humans was shocking. Yet, at the same time, this revelation opened the door to unbelievable peace, creativity, and unconditional love. Yes, it is a bit unsettling to realize we are not what we thought we were. Paradoxically, I still seem to appear as a human being, minus the mental ruminating and suffering.
The practices of contemplative prayer and self-inquiry were my primary tools of uncovering the path to awakening. My fellow travelers and teachers at our local self-inquiry group were instrumental in offering their support and encouragement on the spiritual path.
I now know the true nature of wholeness, oneness, singularity, the one without a second. Jesus the Christ referred to this oneness as “thine eye being single.” “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” (Matt 6:22-23, KJV)
Believing we are separate beings is the source of all personal suffering as it is the personal self that suffers. I’ve learned there is a big difference between what appears and what we believe is appearing.
My focus on this website is pointing to the tangled relationship between the brain and the mind as each informs our beliefs, thinking patterns, and knowings. We live and perceive life based on our thoughts and ideas. I lived five decades in constant anxiety, fear, panic, and agoraphobia until 2011, when my thoughts and mental knowings were seen as a vaporous nothingness as I awakened as edgeless, empty no-thing-ness appearing as every-thing-ness.
I live today peacefully and content, just as this gorgeous hawk does here in the gardens. This inner peace is available to you too when you begin to see and perceive beyond the mental imaginings and knowings of the human brain and mind.
I finally found the remedy to releasing my over-the-top fears and panic while studying and practicing self-inquiry and reading and reflecting on the Perennial Wisdom Teachings. These ancient writings are the Philosophia Perennis, an early nineteenth-century phrase that points towards a shared universal truth that echoes within all of the world religions. How beautiful to learn these teachings resonate through all humanity.
I had no idea Jesus the Christ, the Buddha, Rumi the Poet, and Lao Tzu were all pointing towards the same infinite, edgeless, seamless, eternal Truth…we are not separate beings, there is only Oneness, a Unicity, seeming appearance of this or that. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus the Christ said ( Matt. 6:22, 23 ), “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” Ponder the “eye being single” for a while and see where you land.
We can explore our deeply held mental beliefs, release them, and begin to perceive reality differently. This other perspective I am pointing towards is living life beyond the beliefs in separation, and noticing how “what is appearing” as Life is unfolding effortlessly, timelessly, and seamlessly only Now.
What appears is edgeless, seamless, awareness beyond our human mental imaginings of time and space. Life is not separate and personal, it is undivided wholeness appearing as this or that. All the great sages offer this same unitive, oneness perspective, including Jesus the Christ and the Buddha.
Reading these essays, I encourage you to observe and listen with your heart…to intuit, ponder, and imagine how easily human minds create an imaginary personal self where none exists. I know, it seems crazy, yet it’s not.
Welcome to my site,
Anita
